In my opinion, we are at the threshold of new civilizations that will be
essentially different from the existing industrial societies. The fundamental
difference being: A shift in the central human activity, from work and
production-related activities, to more creative and spiritual activities.

Here I would like to briefly touch on more tangible aspects of this epochal
change currently lumped under "Futurism", "New Thought", etc with a host of
connotations. The issues range from human values and interpersonal relations of
individuals to the economics of new technologies and the spiritual dimensions of
life.

Social issues such as worldwide war and peace are no longer viewed a la
Clauswitz as "continuation of politics by other means." From a new perspective
peace is as much related to the programming of the unconscious part of human
mind over millennia as it is related to the economical and political realities
of our time.

In other words, lasting peace cannot be accomplished by more political treaties
and protocols. As Willis Harman has put it in his Higher Creativity, the "flight
or fight" programming of the human unconscious "inner mind" must be superseded.

Moreover, progress and justice are not just evaluated on a one-dimensional
sliding scale of economic efficiency anymore. A host of other factors ranging
from environmental and biological imperatives to aesthetic and spiritual values
also affect and define our concepts of progress and justice.

In short, the new perspective encompasses all aspects of society and is not
confined to just politics, religion, science or psychology. I shall define new
outlook as a singular conceptual category to mean the disenchantment with the
philosophical paradigms of the industrial society in different realms of life
and the search to go beyond them.

In this search one often finds people going "below" the industrial paradigms and
thinking of all non-industrial paradigms as advancement, whereas many of the
revived pre-industrial, pre-scientific modes of thought put us in a worse
situation than our current industrial societies.

One needs to be careful that in negating the existing industrial society not to
fall prey to pre-industrial medievalism or barbarism, which certainly could not
be called an achievement. Moreover, revolutions or alternative lifestyles are
not necessarily progressive.

In fact, the simultaneity of revolution and progress, a simultaneity which had
become a major ideological heritage of industrial society ever since the
American and French revolutions, is no longer true. Maybe the world will have
another Immanuel Kant to theorize this reversal.

The social programs of the best and worst of new thought groups exist only in
thought and on the paper at the present just as the programs of socialists were
only on paper before they ascend to power But once a movement succeeds, its
program becomes a social reality and no longer remains an interesting
intellectual chat in a cafeteria.

The above is why in my opinion the new perspective needs more critical
examinations. For example, issues such as the practices of many spiritual groups
need to be critically evaluated. They promote a strong role for their teachers
(gurus), that oftentimes, even surpasses the role of the priests in the Middle
Ages.

A similar phenomena can be observed among psychotherapy groups, such as EST and
FORUM in California and elsewhere (See Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman's SNAPPING
for an authoritative analysis of these groups). This semi-priesthood phenomena
in psychology groups can be seen in respect to the authority bestowed to the
psychologists. Whether we would be better off to have psychotherapists acting as
priests is an open question!

Let me emphasize that authoritative views are usually backed with research and
objective studies, whereas authoritarian views are backed by the functional
position bestowed to individuals by their function in the cult's organizational
structure which justifies such privileges.

But the issue of gurus and semi-priests is not all that the new thought has to
deal with. New areas of research into topics that were simply dropped in modern
science as superstition have resurfaced. New studies of ESP, yoga, karma,
meditation, psychometry, dreams, aura, crystals as well as the value of
mysticism, meditation and the power of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) are
the host of other problematic issues.

It is true that attention to the spiritual side of life in contrast to most
philosophical paradigms of the industrial society (liberalism, socialism,
humanism, etc.) is a great achievement for new thought. But the revival of
numerology, tarot, alchemy, out-of-body experiences, astrology, channeling,
etc., is problematic.

Of course, I do not think that this revival is just a simple repetition of
hermetic classics. The present practitioners are like the Renaissance
intellectuals who put on the Greek cloaks to offer their own inventions
underneath.

I think, philosophically the futuristic thinking as a whole is developing a
central theme which is challenging the main philosophical "super paradigm" of
the more advanced human civilizations.

In all the advanced civilizations the process of tool-making to change the world
was accompanied by a philosophical notion of predictability and control. This is
how humans "tamed" nature and control became the main purpose when facing
nature.

It was not enough to look at nature and to listen to its sounds, feel is warmth
and chill, taste and smell its delicacies. Humans needed to search its causes
(finally in four senses this term, causality, was formulated by Aristotle).

Control as a purpose expanded our eyesight from the immediate to subsequent far
causes. In fact, humans can see as far as distant stars with their ordinary
eyesight and this is not their immediate biological need.

We developed our senses far beyond what our biological development would bring
and then language, writing, and technologies which reached a great peak in the
industrial civilization. But what are the drawbacks?

Through controlling nature, we lost our respect for it and in many ways began
exploiting it, we now can witness various forms of pollution as "part" of
nature. Along with nature, we started to control each other and in the domain of
family, tribe, city, nation, and even world-wide, control became the issue at
stake in the forms of economic force, political power, or otherwise. Even within
the smallest social units, the control of women by men was evident.

The historical challenges to any kind of control were the substitution of one
form of control for another. Thus, the control itself was not challenged and
different social classes such as workers, or different races such as blacks or
different genres such as female sex were competing for mastery and control.

This is why the activists of these movements would find themselves practicing
the same traits as the ones they challenged whenever they succeeded. Then
testimonies of "disillusionment" would follow accompanied by regrets over the
sacrifices!

It seems like the strife for control of nature and the control by different
social groups reached its peak in the industrial society and it gained
international dimensions in this society within its short span of existence.
Maybe this is why we are beginning to see the futility of strife for control and
are beginning to search beyond this "super-paradigm" of all human civilizations.

I differentiate my viewpoint from the anarchist position in this manner that my
proposal of going beyond control is relative to the growth of each individual.
In other words, proper management is definitely preferred to chaos, when one is
going up the steps of development and evolution.

My negation of the control paradigm is what I view as my ideal for humanity as a
whole. I describe the alternative paradigm as an autonomous synchronicity or a
mutual whirl. How can we be whirling together with nature, with each other,
different families, races, nations without giving up our identity?

How can we be dancing en masse without any partner controlling any of the
others? I think if we can answer these questions in theory and practice, we will
probably take a giant step in the history of humankind. This is why I entitled
this article "Dancing in the Air!"

I would like to scrutinize my dance metaphor. I asked how can we be dancing
without either partner controlling the other. But isn't it true that this is
exactly what the best dancers do? They resonate together.

In other words, the expert dancers have their own centers, yet they relate.
Because they have their own center, they do not follow their partner but they
resonate with her/him. This is how they can whirl around each other without
either side controlling or being threatened by control by the other. You cannot
expect a novice to achieve this state of dance in a few lessons, but if two
advanced dancers try to approach each other by a control paradigm, they are
doomed to fail.

Perhaps the most advanced human societies have reached such a stage, in which
any form of control is not only unpleasant but is not feasible anymore and
backfires.

Especially for the more advanced strata of these societies who are involved in
contemplative and creative undertakings rather than action-oriented jobs,
control-oriented paradigms are doomed to fail in organizing any kind of
relations at work, at home, or at play.

In the post-industrial societies where the creative side of human undertakings
is gaining precedence over tool-like work, where contemplation is finding more
value than quick action, even the most Lockean/democratic form of control of the
governed, i.e. even control by one's own "consent", can hardly work.

It is noteworthy that in fields such as pure science and art any form of
control, even the most democratic kinds, have mostly been counter-productive in
the past too. Only in economic and political institutions, different forms of
control have shown various degrees of efficiency from time to time in the Modern
Times.

Democracy being the best form of control in those realms may be superseded by
non-control socio-political mechanism which can result from the changes at the
more basic level of human nature.

If the more active or practical side of human life has been in prominence ever
since tool-making and if the more "passive" or contemplative side of life is
gaining prominence, it is not hard to imagine the whole basis of our social
institutions which were based on the former to transform in accordance with the
"needs" of the latter.

In sum, practical knowledge to be superseded by reflective wisdom, and the
spiritual side of life rather than the mechanical side, to take the major
portion of living hours.

The above paradigm shift is the reason that I think the differentiation of
changing ourselves and changing the world (the emphasis being on the latter)
which made sense in the industrial civilization should now be superseded. I
think using the new paradigm in our relationships with our children, spouse, or
friends is as important as finding alternative organizational plans at work and
in politics.

In fact, at the present this paradigm, in contrast to the industrial paradigm,
is being more defined at the micro/individual level than at the grand/social
scale. I think the reason is that this view is challenging the whole history of
humanity as a whole and not just one particular civilization in contrast to,
e.g., the industrial civilization that was challenging only another
civilization, i.e., the mediaeval society.

Now if neither nature controls humankind nor the human race controls nature, how
can human life be possible. Does that mean that we will be overwhelmed by nature
and live like animals? Not at all. In fact, the animals are not controlled by
nature but are overwhelmed by it. They are hardly distinguished from nature for
the term control even to make sense.

Humans, thanks to language, knowledge, and technologies have achieved an
irreversible "separateness" from nature that will preclude any kind of
submergence. Maybe our efforts to control nature, and also the attempts of
different social classes, races & sexes to control their origins were necessary
steps to achieve a separateness.

The reduction and final elimination of work means the final freedom of humankind
from the "dictums" of nature for its survival and humans can begin to have a
total symbiotic relationship with nature without the fear of being conquered.
The same can be true for human relationships.

In other words, for an individual who does not have to work the essential
portion of his/her life for survival, it is possible to "dance freely in the
air." Envisioning how we all can whirl together with nature and each other is
the first step to find ways to reach this symbiosis in different realms of life.

This is not the same as anarchism, where control is replaced with
'anti-control'. The difference is that here a certain level of maturity, at
social and individual level, ensures the stepping beyond the paradigm of
control; and self-management, rather than dropping management in favor of
anarchy and bewilderment This is something like what Zen practitioners have
striven for centuries.

This will help change the whole programming of our human nature of the last
hundred millennia which has been centered on control. This is a giant and
difficult step for humankind but once knowing that replacing one form of control
for another has been fruitless at least in the last quarter century, then we may
start accepting this difficult path as our only alternative for survival on this
planet.

If the philosophy of control is superseded, how do we know if we do not
practically fall under the control of nature or under the control of the
mischief-makers. I think the achievements of the advanced civilizations in
technologies and also in the recognition of basic human rights are irreversible
unless a catastrophe like a nuclear war or a world-wide reversal occurs.

But I think such catastrophes are more probable to happen if we do not wake up
soon enough to change this paradigm of control, a one-time necessary, yet
outmoded characteristic of the human race. Even starting to visualize the new
paradigm in the different realms of life will show the futility of a paradise in
which one is controlled yet "well-treated!" This way we may begin to see nature
and each other differently, different from what we used to see when we had
utility in mind!!

----------------------------------------------------------------------
* The above article was first published in the Spring 1988 issue of Mundus
Novus.
**The article was first posted on SCI (soc.culture.iranian) Usenet newsgroup on
Jan 18, 1995.